Saturday, December 31, 2005

Rethinking Nation-Building: "The path to security is not just investment in the institutions of security. The price tag for security in a fragile state can quickly run into billions of dollars a year. A sustained analysis by NATO of the best means of achieving security in Afghanistan showed that credible institutions and public finance would contribute more to security than would the deployment of troops. Nor is the answer money alone; in these countries, money cannot be translated to capital, because such things as the rule of law, transparency and predictability are lacking. The state is the most effective, economical way of organizing the security and well-being of a population, just as the company is the most effective approach in a competitive economy.Thus the need for functioning states has become one of the critical issues of our times. Global political, economic and security institutions must have a new goal: to promote the emergence of states that can fulfill their necessary functions. This goal provides a unified answer to numerous initiatives, including debt crisis, implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, and security."